[kingofspain]

This seems to have been downvoted but its not an invalid point. The web is old enough now that a certain level of design is expected of things people need to trust. A shop down a side alley with a hand written sign inspires less confidence than something plastic on the high street - however wrong that initial impression may be.

People with background knowledge may know startssl is legit/good but to a newcomer I can easily see why their first impression is off.

[billpatrianakos]

Absolutely! I had never heard of Start before and I honestly thought for a moment that maybe this was spam that had somehow got on to the front page as a fluke. I'm serious. I'm not used to seeing a company website make it on the front page of HN or HN at all without there actually being some kind of article on the page you get to.

SSL certain are important and I don't think their design is helping them look like a legit business. I trust they are after all the comments here but on first glance I was skeptical and thought it was too good to be true. I know we all pride ourselves on being smart, critical thinker that can look past a site's design and see the true value behind it but I think in some cases it's perfectly normal and acceptable to react this way to a design. Superficiality be damned. I'd rather run from a poorly designed, non-legit looking site and be safe rather than risking it and being sorry later because I gave in to the PC, "don't be superficial" side of me.

[grimatongueworm]

Oh, c'mon. You KNOW they licensed that knife image from Victorinox. ;-)